Film Freak Centraltag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-999282957331064452014-06-26T10:59:24-05:00TypePadTransformers: Age of Extinction (2014)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01a73de0c4a4970d2014-06-26T10:59:24-05:002014-06-26T10:59:24-05:00ZERO STARS/**** starring Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Nicola Peltz, robutts screenplay by Ehren Kruger directed by Michael Bay by Walter Chaw Early on in Transformers: Age of Extinction (hereafter Trans4), director Michael Bay seems to be equating the unjust hunt for our noble robot allies the Autobots with the Tea Party's persecution of immigrants, and then it goes to shit. It's a meaningless, impossible-to-follow trainwreck in the patented Michael Bay style that, also in the Michael Bay style, is deeply hateful of women and difference. What's new this time out is that the central object of violation for our lascivious appreciation is 17-year-old Tessa (19-year-old Nicola Peltz), who, upon introduction, is leered at by an assortment of older gentlemen before Bay whips out a (no-kidding) legal justification for our statutory interest. It reminds of the Tony Danza vehicle She's Out of Control not only in that its father figure, Cade YEAGER-because-it's-America-fuck-yeah (Mark Wahlberg), is over-interested in his daughter's budding sexuality, but also in that Trans4 is awful. Awful in its misogyny, sure, and awful because, in what has become a tradition in Bay's Transformers franchise, the only African-American character is comic relief...and a slave. Never mind. Oh, and it hates...Bill ChambersThe Island (2005)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c0192ac1ffca8970d2013-07-21T23:01:00-05:002013-07-21T20:35:10-05:00*/**** starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean screenplay by Caspian Tredwell-Owen and Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci directed by Michael Bay by Walter Chaw What films often get wrong in depicting Satan is that Satan is beautiful. He tells intoxicating lies, was--at least according to Milton--the most stunning of the angels, and, if modern hackery is to be honoured, directs action movies that are kinetic and exciting. The problem of a guy like Michael Bay is that for as close to vermin as the man may be (and stories of his on-set behaviour, especially his treatment of women, are legion and ugly), his films are, at least on the surface, sleek, pulpy, thrill-ride fun. He's defined almost by himself a new way of seeing that has infected lesser technical talents with those same quick scissor-fingers and the attention spans of mayflies. Would that that were all, but this influence has secondary victims in a generation of young male moviegoers, bludgeoned with Bay's rubber mallet into a tacit acceptance of/complicity with Bay's opinion of women (strippers or bimbos or bimbo strippers), race, and how best to feed a movie into a Cuisinart. Still, his latest film, The Island,...Bill ChambersTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c0163059ce9b5970d2012-05-17T11:11:40-05:002012-05-17T11:11:50-05:00ZERO STARS/**** starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro screenplay by Ehren Kruger & Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman directed by Michael Bay by Walter Chaw The worst summer in recent memory continues as Michael Bay brings his slow push-ins and Lazy Susan dolly shots back to the cineplex with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter Transformers 2), the ugliest, most hateful, most simple-minded and incomprehensible assault on art and decency since the last Michael Bay movie. It's bad (that goes without saying), and it's possible that even its fans will have the brute sense to recognize that it's bad--but it's bad in such a way that defies easy description. It's so bad, it's exasperating. The action, as you'd expect, is impossible to follow, with long stretches cascading in on one another without the slightest notion of who's winning, where, and to what end. But that's not why it's bad. It suggests that the evil robots have perfected Terminator technology in the manufacture of a gorgeous slut-bot (Isabel Lucas), who, before trying to kill the returning Sam (Shia LaBeouf) with her go-go-gadget tongue, is humiliated by having heroic Autobot Bumblebee money-shot robot semen all over her face. But...Bill ChambersTransformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01630537d39e970d2012-05-05T10:22:01-05:002012-05-05T10:32:48-05:00ZERO STARS/**** starring Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Frances McDormand screenplay by Ehren Kruger directed by Sir Michael Bay by Walter Chaw It starts, maybe, with the moment Frances McDormand, as an NSA bigwig, declares that evil alien robot Decepticons should pass through customs. No--earlier, when noble alien robot Autobots infiltrate some nameless Arab state to murder Arabs. It might begin when fucking asshole Michael Bay does a long tracking shot following--in 3-D!--the toned, tanned ass of impossible-looking Carly (Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) as she climbs a flight of stairs to straddle her ugly mutt boyfriend Sam (Shia LaBeouf)--a pairing that at least in part explains the decades-long appeal of Ron Jeremy as a porn icon. Or maybe it's the extended profanity ("dick, asshole, clusterfuck, bitch, shit" in a long-playing loop), the wholesale and semi-graphic murder of innocents by both sides, the way the robots bleed in crimson arterial sprays in this PG-13 movie, that instigates the realization that Transformers: Dark of the Moon (hereafter Transformers: Asshole) is a new low watermark for Bay and this naughty-little-boy franchise that highlights Bay's misogyny, puerility, and imbecility for all the world to see. Better, it works as a fine illustration...Bill Chambers